Songs that Pledge the Storm
by The Psychic Mind
Summary: A series of Ikki/Kururu short stories. Rated M for safety.


Hello, this is the Psychic Mind here with an Air Gear fanfic for your reading pleasure. This story will be a series of Ikki/Kururu short stories. I have noticed that there are very few, if any at all Ikki/Kururu stories at all. In fact there are few stories that mention Kururu at all and in these she is almost always a secondary character with almost no development. This fanfic will attempt to mend this state of affairs. To all those fans of my Naruto fanfic (if there are any) I apologize for the delay. I had exams and my computer experienced some grave problems and to make matters worse I have had writer's block on that story. I will see if I can make any progress on that story. As for this story I will be incorporating a theme that I have seen in fanfics, giving each chapter a theme song. To the author who I got this idea from (whose name I have forgotten) sorry for borrowing your idea (my lawyer told me to say that). Let's get started on my new fic, Songs that Pledge the Storm. Speaking of my lawyer here is something else he told me to do…

Disclaimer: According to the Dicriel Alien, I do not own Air Gear (Damn!)

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Songs that Pledge the Storm

Chapter 1: Learn to Fly

Featured Song: Learn to Fly

Artist: Foo Fighters

Album: There is Nothing Left to Lose

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Life, Kururu Sumeragi reflected, was like drinking strong liquor in Mexico.

Sometimes it was good, at other times horrible and at other times weird like waking up married to a goat. This was the thought that passed her mind as she observed Itsuki Minami fluently cursing a colourfully wrapped package on the ground.

Back up.

Let us skip back a few, to see how our hero came to this battle of sailor's wits.

It all started with Kururu's desire to learn how to ride Air Trek. She had ever since joining Toul Tool To, been interested in it and that interest had only grown since she had met (become infatuated with) Minami Ikki. Her role as the Pledge Queen only heightened that desire and so she had asked Ikki to teach her. The fact that she asked him and not any of her team members that could ride, like her own cousin Kanon or Rune had nothing to do with her crush with him.

No. Of course not.

It did not have anything to do with the fact that in the (alleged) race for Ikki she was (in her mind) far behind the other two contestants. Simca had the advantage not only of being someone that Ikki respected greatly and had a crush on (Onigiri, in a daze from a successful peeping mission had mentioned stalking before being beaten into a pulp by Ikki) but also of being almost sinfully hot (she had personally seen Ikki ogling Simca, to her quite, if she was honest, jealous reaction). Her second competitor, Ringo had the advantage of knowing Ikki for almost his entire life and also being hot (more in the girl next door who also happens to be hot category). So Kururu was behind in both the experience and hotness category. Worse, according to Ami she had been banished to the 'friends' category, out of which she was almost certain not to get.

Of course this was all hypothetical. Just idle speculation.

…

Right. Anyway, when the rest of Kogarasumaru found out it had not exactly not gone over well. Not that they disapproved, exactly the opposite. After having to endure Akito's (quite scary) pouting anger, Agito's uncomfortably honest and brutal disinterest, Kazu and Buccha's understanding smug silences, Emily and Yayoi's (really annoying, if marginally helpful) advice on relationships and (worst of all) Onigiri's disgusting perverted advice, Kururu, quite unusually, felt like joining Ikki in killing them all.

This leads us to today's happening where when she had gotten to Kogarasumaru's training area she had seen the rest of the team leaving the area with entirely too smug looks on their faces and Onigiri dropping the aforementioned package on the ground while mentioning a raunchy joke to an increasingly uncomfortable looking Ikki. Said pig had quickly sprinted away as Ikki attempted to commit heinous acts of violence against him.

This brings us to the present where Ikki is still cursing the fleeing pig. Kururu walked closer to Ikki and looked at the offending package which Ikki had accidentally torn open. Inside, she could see several porn magazines and videos as well as various other 'devices' (was that a diaper?!!) as well as a note addressed to her and Ikki detailing some 'activities' that they should do instead of training.

That was when the blood haze started.

She must have been radiating an uncomfortable aura since after the red faded from her eyes she could see Ikki looking at her with a scared look in his eyes. She also noted that the local wildlife was fleeing for their lives.

Hmm. Maybe she was just a little angry after dealing with so much crap recently. Not that she was really angry. Come on, Kururu was not an angry person, she was like niceness personified. No need for anger management or anything.

Right?

…

Let's go with that…

"Hey, Kururu, are you okay?" Ikki asked cautiously, ready to run if she turned on him. In the event that he couldn't escape he would try to play dead and/or beg for mercy whichever one and in whatever order saved his life, like he saw on those wildlife programs, and living with his sisters…

Heh. Kid was smarter than he looked. Thank God.

With an almost scary ease (see what I did there) Kururu turned around and fixed Ikki with an angelic (that right there is really scary) look. "Yes I'm fine Ikki-kun, let's get started with today's lesson. I really want to get started", she said enthusiastically.

Still looking at her worriedly (again, smart kid), Ikki nodded. "Okay, let's start with some basic runs and then…"

With Ikki being a capable teacher and Kururu's previous knowledge of Air Trek (you can't build something without knowing a bit about how to use it) and talent (she is a genius), Kururu's ability with Air Trek was growing by leaps and bounds. It had been almost a month since she had started learning and she was quite satisfied with her progress. She could feel herself getting closer to something, something that she couldn't define, something…

She twisted her body, applied pressure to her Air Trek and jumped, scaling the wall of the building. She turned and looked at Ikki who was scaling the wall quickly next to her. She could see that the quality of his tricks was way higher than hers, but that was to be expected since he had been doing this longer than she had (and he was a genius too). Just looking at him scaling the wall gave Kururu that same feeling that she had had ever since she had met Ikki.

That feeling of excitement and fear. That fear that was so exciting. That feeling that swept away everything. That wind that created a storm inside her heart. She smiled. That amazing feeling…

Spinning around on his Air Trek after he reached the apex of his jump, Ikki looked across at Kururu. She had an interesting expression on her face as she scaled the wall. Ikki smirked as he realized that she was truly, truly excited to be riding Air Trek. It was not the first time he had seen that look on her face since they had started practicing together but he never tired of seeing it. The thought that someone else enjoyed Air Trek as much as he did…

He kicked off of the wall, increasing his speed as she scaled the wall. He loved the thought that he could show other people that same freedom that he had found with Air Trek. He looked again at Kururu's figure as they took another jump. She was really a weird one. Starting from their weird meeting in that park (as if she could outjump him on the swing, no way in hell) to all the good to the profoundly life-altering and horrifying moments in between, Kururu had become a close friend to him.

She also had some of the weirdest thought processes ever (as if you can talk, fucking crow). Her tuning abilities were amazing but even more important than that she was just easy to talk to, even more so than Ringo or Simca, since she was just so kind and understanding. She could act exceptionally weird (again you really should not be talking, Babyface), but despite that she had a streak of bravery and strength in her that Ikki respected. Jumping off a roof in order to help him, running away from home, even supporting their enemies to help him, now that was bravery, and that was truly worth his admiration.

Ikki dropped down after he completed his jump and waited as Kururu landed as well. He grinned. "You're getting better", he said, smiling. She laughed, "Thanks, you're a great teacher". He strutted up and down, "As long as you know that I am truly amazing ", he joked.

Since they had been practicing for a while and had worked up a bit of a sweat (I'm smelling you, Crow), the two plopped down on the ground, drinking some of that new-fangled fruit-flavoured water (which surprisingly is not really that bad). Kururu shivered a bit. She really did like the feeling of pushing herself to the limits. Like she had told Akito that time she was ill at ease if she wasn't doing something (Over-active weirdo). She watched and listened as Ikki continued to make silly jokes.

She grinned again. Only Minami Itsuki could make idiocy look fun and cool (note that she did not deny that he is an idiot. Note it well!) "Want to grab something at KFC?" she asked. He turned around with a gleam on his face. "Meat, meat, meat, I love meat, I eat meat on a Monday, I eat meat on a Tuesday, I eat meat on a Wednesday, meat is the gift of the meat gods to us lowly humans…" The crow went of on a tangent, performing some strange ritualistic meat dance. Kururu looked at his antics sweatdropping (this was her 1,237,906th sweatdrop since she had met Ikki and the Kogarasumaru crew. Coincidence?) and tried to get through to the meat- deluded crow. "Hey, Ikki-kun comes on let's go", she prompted.

Jarred out of his meat dream Ikki responded to the call of meat. Oh sweet meat, delicious meat…

Okay. We're done with that. Seriously.

"Okay, let's go", Ikki replied, skating after the girl who had already gone ahead of him.

On the way to the fine eating establishment founded by Colonel Sanders that serves the delicious chicken flavoured with eleven secret herbs and spices, and throughout the years had expanded it's menu to include many tasty and delicious chicken based meals (sorry for the tangent I ate some KFC today. And FYI, I am not being paid by KFC so take that thought out of your minds, paranoid people) Ikki and Kururu shared some jokes about their friends and their schools.

"… And then we had to pretend like nothing had happened. We only just got away from the Sister that time", Kururu finished, regaling Ikki with a story about how she and her friends had avoided their teacher finding out about their night jobs as tuners. "It's a good thing that Ine-sensei is the school nurse or I don't know how we would have managed", she said.

Ikki nodded sagely "Yeah, if Ton-chan wasn't our teacher then it would have been really hard to do stuff. Like for instance if it wasn't for her we might never have met Akito or Agito", he said as they turned a corner.

"Really?" she said, surprised.

"Yeah," he said emphatically (see I know big words too). "How did that happen?" she said, curious. Ikki recounted the tale of how he and his crew had met Akito and Agito. (To those who are wondering, of course he left out the kissing scene. No one spreads that kind of thing around. Duh!!)

"So I stopped Kaito-san from taking him back", Ikki said as Kururu listened, as they skated down a back alley. "If it wasn't for Ton-chan and her car, things might have turned out much worse", he finished.

Kururu nodded, impressed with the story. But… "Hey, Ikki-kun?" she shyly asked as they got near the KFC. "Yeah?" he replied, already thinking of the delicious chicken he was going to eat. "Um… The other day when Onigiri-san came back from the bathhouse and he was really excited, he said that you lost your first kiss to Akito-san when you met. Is that true?"

Ikki stopped, paralyzed with an extremely angry look on his face. Mastering his high degree of anger towards that pig (who was almost undoubtedly doing something perverted at that moment. I could set up a scene with the obligatory sneezing because someone talked about you gag but who wants to know what perverted things that pig is up to) he went up to the door of the KFC and brightly said "Come on, Kururu, let's go eat" while plotting heinous revenge against the pig while Kururu shyly nodded and followed him while secretly harbouring extreme jealousy toward the baby shark (Strange how she and Ringo were of one mind in this matter).

After a hearty meal of some of the finest reasonably priced and delicious fast food chicken in the entire world, provided by one of the most widespread restaurants in the world (really I am not being paid by KFC I just really like their chicken. Is that a crime, because if so I don't want to be right!). Ikki and Kururu left and headed to go and pick up some supplies for Kogarasumaru. After picking up everybody's favourite mangas, juices and other assorted stuff, the two made their way back to the Kogarasumaru training area to go and let their food to digest while waiting for the others to show up so that could take their stuff (Ikki was really annoyed at carrying all their stuff, especially Onigiri seeing as how the pig was going to suffer when he got back). The pair returned to the training area and stowed everybody's stuff by the wall (Kururu had to stop Ikki from hiding and destroying the pig's stuff)

Kururu leaned up against the wall. "Hey Ikki-kun?" she hazarded a question to Ikki as leaned on the portion of wall. "Yeah", he answered. She stopped a second and forged on. "Is it okay if Konomi and some of my other team members come and practice here sometimes?" she said. "Practice here?" he echoed. She nodded. "Ever since I have started Konomi and some of the others like Ami have been practicing too." She smiled softly. "I thought that it would be fun if we practiced together." She laughed. "Konomi is sort of mad that I started learning Air Trek without her."

Ikki looked at her for a few seconds and laughed as well "That idiot Kazu also had the same reaction when I started Air Trek ", he said.

Both of them relaxed for a bit, looking up at the sky. A bird flew up out of a tree and fluttered slowly up to the sky, gaining strength as it went along, singing it's song as it went up higher. Both of them grinned slightly.

"Maybe it's because they were scared", Kururu said suddenly as they were looking at the bird.

"What are you talking about? ", Ikki said confusedly, tearing his eyes away from the skies to look at her.

"Kazu-kun and Konomi. Maybe … they were scared that we would leave them behind, fly up into the sky without them", she said somberly.

"Oh.", Ikki said quietly. He thought about Kazu, in particular that battle that he had had with his best friend just a little while ago, how desperate he had been to defeat him.

Ikki stood up suddenly, walking forward. Kururu looked up at him surprised. "What's wrong, Ikki-kun?", she asked. Ikki looked again at the bird, which was now a dot on the horizon. He scratched the back of his head. "Both of those guys are idiots. No way I would ever leave Kazu behind, despite his bad habits. I know that you would never leave Konomi-chan behind either", he said definitively.

Kururu smiled. Despite Konomi's anger issues she was her best friend and she knew come hell or high water she could always depend on her and she would never,ever,ever even think of leaving her behind or keep her out of the loop. "Yeah I would never leave her behind", she said fiercely, looking up at Ikki's face.

Stop.

It was as if someone had pressed that exact button on some universal remote ( I don't think Adam Sandler was nearby).

Ikki looked into Kururu's face suddenly finding his ability to speak to have flown away and left him. He could feel himself suddenly becoming amazingly nervous, wanting to run away and to stay in equal desire.

Kururu looked at Ikki's face experiencing the same phenomena. The air seemed to be thick and heavy. All she could feel with her senses was Ikki. The sight of him, the smell of him, the taste of him, the sound of him and the feeling of wind, that feeling in her heart radiating outward tingling across her body…

Insert obligatory romantic silence here.

…9, 10. Okay, 10 steamboats have passed. Back to the story.

Ikki and Kururu as if by some mysterious correlation in their thought processes pulled away from each other at the same time. Both were breathing heavily as well as blushing new shades of red while thinking WHAT THE HELL!!

Don't get me wrong. This sort of thing had happened between them before ( reference chapters of Air Gear manga), but usually something, like their friends or some weird occurance or some new disaster distracted them. Now, however there was no such thing to distract them and the 'mysterious power' ( not all that mysterious, my clever readers) was much stronger than usual.

Ikki cast his mind around for something to say that would dispel this heavy silence that had suddenly appeared. Kururu, he could see also looked singularly uncomfortable as well. Suddenly the answer appeared to him. Congratulating himself on his (supposed) cleverness in this situation. He energetically asked Kururu "Hey, how are your old man and the rest of those old guys from his company doing?". Kururu started, a happy (too happy) look on her face. Thank God, something that she could talk about without feeling nervous.

"Yeah, they are. Things are starting to turn around for Dad's company. He even got a large new order from a motor company.", she said chirpily.

"Wow, that's great. Your dad is really cool, he deserves to have something good happen to him." Ikki said, sincerely happy for the old guy.

"Dad is really an amazing guy", Kururu said fondly. It had been after she had run away, and the battle with the White Wolves Clan that she had really realized just what a great dad she had. She looked at Ikki again and remembered that Ikki didn't have parents. She wondered just how Ikki had dealt with something like that. (You, the readers are left to ponder on her reaction if she was told that he climbed up the Tokyo Tower in an effort to let his parents see him, jumped, and had to be saved by a giant bird).

"Yeah", Ikki agreed. "Remember, during the battle, when he…". What happens here is quite interesting since as you may know memory recall is linear, meaning that if you remember something you will also remember something that is related to it, which is the principle by which mnemonics work.(Note: mnemonics are those little jingles that you learn in school like the solar system song. Never let it be said that you guys don't learn something by reading my fics. Learning can be fun too!) The reference to the match between Kogarasumaru and the White Wolves Clan also led to remembering Kururu's dad's unfortunate misunderstanding about the two of them (Ha, misunderstanding like a fox) which led to remembering the 'mysterious incident' earlier which now caused another incident. The fact that both of them remembered at roughly the same time is quite amazing (and scary).

Go figure. Life is just strange.

Luckily for them, this was not nearly as uncomfortable as the last incident was as a catalyst occurred to stop it from going farther. To both their profound gratefulness Kururu's phone started ringing and she went off a bit to go and answer.

The luck of the gods, man. The luck of the gods, he had it and it was good. Ikki was currently thinking thoughts quite similar to this as he was profoundly happy that he had escaped another awkward situation

About two feet away from Ikki, Kururu was also thanking her luck though in a less arrogant fashion. All of these unpleasant silences with Ikki were really starting to get on her nerves. She concentrated her attention on the call, which happened to be from Konomi.

"Okay thanks I'll see you later.", she said as she finished the call. "Hey Ikki", she called over to the still self-praising crow. "Konomi, Ami and Nana met up with the rest of the team. They are coming by in a bit."

Ikki perked up. Once everyone came back there wouldn't be any more of the uncomfortable silences and both of them could start to calm down and act rationally again.

"Hey, that's cool. We can just chill out her and wait for them", Ikki said, laying back down on the ground.

"Yeah", Kururu replied. The two stayed like this for a while in a companionable silence, but alas with two young lovebirds like this something was bound to happen sooner or later. (It would more likely than not be Ikki's fault)

Kururu and Ikki continued sharing stories of crazy things that happened to them (there were many of these, as you would imagine) as well as advices on A-T and tuning. However…

Sorry, just wanted a dramatic silence here for the purposes of the plot. Back to the action, folks.

"No way, something like that happened", Kururu said in amazement. "Yeah, Wheelie Williams said that he fought a bear with his bare hands. He is such a liar. He only said that because he was too shy to talk about what he was really doing during that trip to Hokkaido."

Kururu nodded, familiar with the emotion of shyness, "Well, maybe he was afraid that everyone would make fun of him for what he was really doing there", she said. "By the way what was he doing there anyway?"

Ikki shrugged, uninterested. " I don't know. He stuck to that weird bear story. Whatever it was it seems like a stupid thing to be shy about. Nobody would care what he was doing in Hokkaido. There are way more important things to be shy about."

Kururu glanced over at Ikki, annoyance in her eyes. "Yeah, like what", she spat.

Surprised at her tone of voice, he thought for a second, "Ahh, girls can also make you quite shy. A popular person like me also has these kinds of problems", he said, blushing shyly while simultaneously acting self-satisfied.

Now a logical person would have realized from Kururu's tone of voice that saying something like that would not be a particularly intelligent thing to do but this is Minami Itsuki we are talking about here so it did not occur to him.

As for Kururu, normally she would not get annoyed so easily but seeing Ikki so easily dismiss shyness, something that plagued her almost her whole life, got her annoyed and then that comment about being popular made her automatically think of Simca. Not that she had a problem with her but seeing Ikki drool over her always gave her an unpleasant at best feeling and seeing him act like that made her even more annoyed.

"I guess that only something like that could get you to understand the felling of being shy", she barked at him getting even angrier.

"Well… I…" Ikki stuttered, surprised at her (to him) incomprehensible anger.

"Yeah, you couldn't get how someone like me feels, huh", mirroring the words that Hako had said to her not to long ago not even realizing what she had just said to her crush.

Ikki, growing up in a house full of women knew full well their sadistic nature, even a girl as nice as Kururu (sorry if I have insulted any female readers but seriously read the Air Gear manga or anime and see what they do to the poor guy and you can find it in your hearts to pity and understand his position. As an author I am just writing it. Please don't hate me) and decided for his own safety to just apologize for whatever he did. Idiot.

"Umm, Kururu I don't really think that you are all that shy", Ikki offered in a small tone of voice.

"Oh, is that so?" she said in a sarcastic tone of voice, in a burst of unusual (for her) clarity for inter-personal relations seeing through his ruse to calm her down.

"Y-Yeah, I mean that time you jumped off that roof to assemble the Wind Regalia and when you ran away from home, you really have guts, tenacity, that sort of thing", he said hurriedly.

Kururu looked at him blushing, her tone softening as her anger cooled. "Really?"

Ikki, glad that he seemed to have escaped a grisly fate, continued talking. "Yeah, you are… really…"

In some strange fashion, both of their faces had ended up extremely close to one another. Both of them were sporting huge blushes and looking as if they had only just seen each other for the first time in their lives.

Looking back, neither of them could tell who was the person who started the kiss. One moment they were there another they were kissing each other fiercely.

Ikki…

Kururu…

They couldn't tell how long they had been on the floor kissing when an entirely too amused series of noises met their ears.

Both of them whirled around to discover their teammates staring at them looking way too amused for their own good.

Agito (both Ikki and Kururu thanked God that Akito was not in control of the body, who knew how he would react) smirked and loudly remarked. Fuck. Is this the kind of 'training' you were doing, Crow?

Ikki growled thinking about mentioning the Fang King's relationship with Nakayama but opted to take the high road (really he didn't want to be Agito's 'Road' at the moment plus he now had excellent blackmail material against him).

Meanwhile Konomi, Suzuki Ami, Emily Adachi and Nakayama Yayoi were in the back whispering together with Ami, Emily, Yayoi looking increasingly annoyed and Konomi looking happier.

Konomi jumped up laughing, holding a large amount of money in her hand. "I win! I knew Kururu could do it ", she crowed. (Again, a very nice pun if I may say so).

Kururu looked at her askance. "You bet on my relationship with Ikki?, she said tonelessly.

Konomi gave her a thumbs up. "Yeah I did. By the way, good luck with Ikki-kun", she said, grinning as she ran her hands through the money.

Kazu and Buccha were talking with Ikki in an unbearably smug way, with Agito and Onigiri watching.

"Ah Issa-dono a relationship between Itsuki-dono and Kururu-dono will do them both good, don't you think?" Kazu said acting like some samurai.

"Yes, yes I totally agree Kazuma-dono this will help them both mature as adults and unlock their full potential", Buccha said with mock gravity (another very cool word) as they were sniggering at him.

Ikki glared at them "Shut. Up."

Onigiri got that perverted look on his face that boded nothing but trouble. "So did you guys use any of the 'toys' I left behind for you", he said, his face twisting in anticipation.

As if in synch, Ikki and Kururu's heads twisted toward Onigiri and both of them started leaking copious amounts of killing intent. Everyone else, even Agito went to one side as Ikki and Kururu 'disciplined' the pig.

Later, while Onigiri was smoking in the crater they had left him in, Ikki and Kururu sat together a little away from the others. "Ikki. About that kiss, about…us, what should we…"

Ikki shushed her softly. "Kururu, let's just work it out. Together." he said, smiling at her.

She smiled back. "Yeah", she replied as they looked up at a sky that seemed to hold the promise of a new future, one in which they could both learn to fly.

Fin

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And here is an omake for all of you. Hope you like.

Omake: Onigiri's Pervert Adventure

"Hey, Masahito-san", Onigiri said as he walked into the bookstore. "Do you have the new schoolgirl edition of Wild Wild XXX Life yet?"

"Sure, Onigiri-kun they are in the back", the storeowner replied. "And thanks for that delivery of that melon flavoured ramen, it was delicious" he added as Onigiri ran around to the private area of the shop.

Onigiri stopped on his way to the owner's stock room to bow in respect. "I hope our arrangement can continue well, Masahito-sempai", Onigiri said, thankful as he always was of the deal between him and this prince among men as he went around the back.

After collecting his porn and stashing it in a bag, Onigiri left, bidding a fond farewell to the storeowner. As he was leaving though, he sneezed heavily.

"Damn, who is thinking of me? Wait, maybe it is a hot girl. Yes, my dream harem is coming together." the pervert looked up as he realized that he had been speaking aloud and drooling.

Middle –aged woman and her 6-year-old daughter looked at him. "Mommy! Mommy! That boy looks like a pig! Why is he drooling and what's a harem?" she asked innocently.

The girl's mother glared at Onigiri and briskly replied, dragging her daughter away. "Not Important. Don't look at the young man, pig, whatever."

Onigiri sighed, "Life is hard"

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Well here is the first chapter, hope you like it. Please review, but don't flame. I lost my flame retardant pants. Sorry if Kururu seemed a bit OOC but it was for the story. Since I have exams and stuff I am not sure when I can next upload but have faith! I will…eventually. Bidding you a fond farewell for now, the Psychic Mind.


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